CAMHS stands for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. We are a team of doctors,
nurses, psychologists and therapists who help young people up to the age of 18 with
mental health problems.

Many young people do not have mental illnesses but may have serious problems with
their emotions, behavior, relationships with other people or coping with stress or
trauma. We aim to offer the most up to date and best researched treatments.

Often working with CAMHS involves sharing sensitive and private information. This
will be treated as confidential and only shared with CAMHS staff involved in the
child’s care. If a child wishes to keep information confidential from their parents,
we would respect this as long as it does not indicate that the child is in danger.

Other professionals may also be involved in the care and treatment of a child and
it is good practice to work with them and share certain information. If this is the
case, we would ask for permission before doing this.

All people who work with children and young people have a responsibility to ensure
that they are safe. If we discover that a child is at risk of serious harm, we have
a duty to share this with social services or the police.